


The Bloodfly Concern

by volpeanon



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Prototype (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Found Family, M/M, and neither is alex, bloodflies are Not Family Friendly, dana loves and cherishes one (1) idiot man, doot doot i'm on the niche train again lads, oh it's gonna be bad, please bully me until i finish this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:34:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volpeanon/pseuds/volpeanon
Summary: The Outsider wondered what would happen if, for shits and giggles, say, a bloodfly suddenly found itself turned into a man.Alex Mercer used to be a bug and now he is very, very confused.
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Dana Mercer, Robert Cross/Alex Mercer
Comments: 33
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The bloodfly knew only a few things; the soft, warm, wet flesh of its beginning; the smell of blood; the gentle hum of many wings; the vivid heat of the day; the sluggish chill of the night; the dry, papery nest that was filled with the many - their hums, and their pattering feet, and their instincts all in unison.

It was the smell of blood that drew it from the many and the humming home, into the world beyond. The air between its wings felt warm but not hot, the light in its eyes not dark and yet not really light - the time when large creatures were few and it was easy to move. The blood pulled it onward, to flit between spaces filled with flesh smells, looking for the sweetness of something spilled.

A hole poured out the smell. The light was strange within, the space hummed - not like the many and the nest, but something deep and unfamiliar. The bloodfly was unafraid. Only the smell of blood interested it, and here was the body, warm and soft for beginnings, a white slab of bone in its lap smeared with the sweet blood. The fly landed. The bone vibrated; before the fly could even dip its pointed nose to the feast, a hand came from nowhere and encased it with fingers like a cage; it found itself frozen, lying helpless in the hand that drew it up and turned over.

The black eyes of the god inspected it, bringing a crushing weight of knowledge its mind was never made to comprehend. He held its little paralysed body gently, turning it this way and that. "Perhaps you will do." he said, a hint of amusement in his voice. His fingers pressed, and the bloodfly trembled in fear of the unknown it had never conceived of. Its body filled with a song, a song it didn't understand, cold and deep and dark, and it hurt, it swelled within the fragile insect until it managed to struggle its spindly legs in distress.

"We'll see." the god smiled.

Dana tossed the blankets off her as her east-facing room grew hot in the early sun. She fumbled with sleep-blurred eyes around the tiny apartment, pulling breakfast out of the cupboards, squinting and cursing as she went through her almost daily path around the kitchen in search of the bread knife.

She'd set the skillet on the stove when she heard something at the door. It was late for her neighbour to be dropping off her copy of the newspaper on his way home from his nightshift. Maybe she could catch him and actually say hello, it had been ages since they'd-

She opened the door and a naked man scrabbled backwards across the hall, colliding with the corner and curling into a ball. She blinked at him. He looked at anywhere but her, his pale eyes flitting like flies around and up and down and never stopping, not for a second.

"Uh," she took in his violently trembling body with his legs drawn up to his chest, sinewy arms wrapped so tight about them they bulged, and his fingers were going white "Are you- okay?"

Of course he wasn't. He was on something, she was sure. He pressed his lips into a tight line and hummed, no tune, just a drone, on and on. He went on for so long he ran out of breath.

"Okay, sure." she bent slowly to pick up the newspaper that had already been left in its usual place "You have too much from a pipe?" she mimed a hookah. He still wouldn't look at her, but when she took a step closer, he flinched so hard he knocked his head off the wall. He looked like he thought he could fold himself small enough to disappear. No one had ever been scared of her before, not at 5'4" and incapable of lifting a fat cat without breaking into a sweat. She sat down cross legged on the floor so she wasn't looming over him. "Hey. I'm friendly. How did you get here?"

He finally looked her in the eyes, briefly. "Gone." he whispered. His voice was so hoarse he almost couldn't get it out. "Lost."

"What did you lose?" she asked. His face scrunched up, struggling.

"...  _ home _ ."

She'd always been a sucker for strays. Besides, what could she do, call the guard? He wouldn't last ten minutes with them. He wouldn’t last five with the Overseers.

"Well, you can come inside," she said slowly "Until you find it. And you can have some clothes and some food."

"Food?" he certainly perked up at that.

"Yeah, food. C'mon." she stood up, and he didn't, just uncurled slightly. As she went to the door, she glanced back to find him crawling awkwardly across the floor on all fours. Her eye was drawn to a dark tattoo on the back of his hand, but it wasn't a gang sign she recognised, although she swore it rang a bell somewhere in the back of her mind. She'd look into it later. For now, she asked  "Do you want a hand?"

He glanced up at her. "I have… two."

"Sure. Do you want help standing up?"

He considered his hands, and the hard ground under his knees. "Yes?"

Given his total lack of balance, it took a bit to give him the help when he was leaning on her almost more than his own legs, his arms clinging around her, and her trying her best not to look down. She'd wrap him in a sheet, she decided, until she could get clothes for him. One wobbling step at a time she got him to the table and into a chair, where he clutched the sides of it like he was going to fall off, and where he let her tuck her blanket carefully around him. He sat demurely enough while she did it, although he didn’t show any indication of acknowledging or even noticing the deliberate way she draped it to cover his lap. She threw a quick breakfast together, eggs and toast and cheese because that was what she had, and debated as she put it all in front of him whether he’d know to use the knife and fork she provided. He sat there for a long moment while she tucked into hers, staring at it - before it seemed to occur to him to watch her. She tried not to make it obvious that she was watching him back just out of curiosity for whatever weird shit he’d do next. He handled the fork like a toddler would, and within a few seconds had made it screech on the plate so bad they both flinched and he dropped it like it had stung him.

“You know what?” Dana put her own fork down “We can use our hands today. Try this. Just, like, flop it onto the bread.”

His flickery eyes and clumsy hands followed her through the motions. He flexed his jaw a few times when she bit off a piece, tried it himself, then chewed aimlessly, like he didn’t even know how to do  _ that. _

She was starting to think she really needed to get him to a doctor, more than anything else.

“Maybe you should swallow that?” she offered, after watching him chew his first mouthful for a solid minute. At least he didn’t choke on it, although it seemed to take him a while to work through the whole process. She was finished and cleaned up by the time he was bent over the plate, licking the last of the crumbs off, and even that he didn’t get right at first - she watched him try and suck them up, before his tongue almost surprised him, flashing out and making short work of what he’d been clumsily attempting for about three minutes.

It was like his body knew how to be a person but he didn’t.

She checked the time. She had to leave for work soon, and ‘found a naked guy in my hallway and taught him how to eat food’ wouldn’t be taken as a serious excuse for lateness at the factory.

“I have to go,” she explained as she washed his plate and he sat twitching at the table still “But you can stay here. There’s more bread here, and cheese, if you get hungry. And there’s some mugs in here for- okay, c’mere.” she made him watch as she filled a battered tin mug from the tap, handing it to him “That’s how you get water, okay? Just hang out in here and when I get back we’ll try and find a doctor.”

He looked down at the mug, the blanket trailing uselessly from his shoulders, and brought his head down to it rather than it up to his mouth. He tried licking the water, then slurping it up out of the middle of the mug, trying to wedge his mouth and chin into it when it got too low. Dana still needed to get dressed, so she left him to it, hearing him try the tap several times as she changed in the bathroom. Whatever, if it worked for him, just let him get to it. She probably should have been more worried about leaving an absolute nutjob in her apartment. She didn’t really own anything of any value, though, so she didn’t think there was a lot he could do, except maybe run off with her good skillet. He was sitting in the chair again when she came out.

“Will you be okay?” she asked. He looked around at the sparse little flat, some grease from the eggs on the corner of his mouth still.

“Thank you.”

“Oh. You’re welcome!” Oh, Void, did she really just feel a little spark of  _ pride  _ for him for that? Congratulations, you did something  _ normal _ , you weird, weird little man. “I’ll be back before it gets dark.”

She left, and then she came running back five minutes later to make sure he knew how to use the toilet.


	2. Chapter 2

"Void, no - like this, you have to get all the bits out." Dana peeled back the pomegranate's skin, opening up the red, glistening core of little jewel-like bits of fruit. His eyes widened and he leant in to peer at it.

"Oh, it's like insides."

_ "Gross," _ she snorted, holding it out to him. He hesitantly tried a piece. "Tastes better than insides though, right?"

"Huh. It's nice." they picked at it in tandem, sitting on a low wall by the canal where an out-of-control vine had overgrown someone's garden to shade the street.

"I don't know why I didn't ask earlier," she said at length, when their fingers were stained red with the juice "But, do you know your name?"

"Don't have one."

She assumed that meant he didn't remember it. "Well mine's Dana. So… I dunno, do you want one just for now? It'll make things easier."

"Sure."

She flicked a piece of the fruit's skin into the canal with a soft  _ plip _ and tilted her head back to catch a warm streak of sunlight through the vine leaves. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been out like this; between guards, Overseers, gangs, and bloodflies, it had been easier to be a recluse. But having just done her shopping without anyone trying to pick her pocket, or yell some kind of attempt at a pickup line at her, she could see herself enjoying the outdoors again so long as she had a 6’0” man with a resting bitchface following her.

He’d even scared off the asshole with the snappy dog that let it lunge at people before they pulled the chain taut. It had taken one look at him, whimpered, and fled. She wouldn’t think too closely about that - she was just enjoying remembering the sight of the owner turning tail and fleeing after it.

"Do you wanna pick it?"

"I don't know any names."

"Well, there's… uh…" every single name she knew that didn't already belong to someone fled her brain "Fuck. What do you want, a Serkonan one? You look more Gristol to me. Or Morley." Even in Gristol people weren't quite  _ this  _ sickly pale.

"I'm from here."

"Well, I don't know a lot of good Serkonan ones, I'm from Gristol. I only came here for the sun. And to piss off my mother."

"Why?" he asked, weirdly sincere and apparently oblivious to how that wasn’t something you just asked about. She’d feel bad for not answering him, though, it wasn’t like he knew he was fucking up.

"She was a bitch. And after my brother died I… I guess I'd had enough of everyone. So I came over here to try something new, I wanna be a journalist some day."

"What about the rest of your family?"

She tried her best with her tone to keep the conversation from slipping into awkwardly depressing, and gave a shrug. "I didn't have any.”

“You’re alone?” his frown turned concerned. Great, the naked amnesiac felt sorry for her. If she’d ever needed evidence of how insular and lonely she’d gotten, it was that.

“I guess.”

“It’s not good to be alone.”

“I move around a lot, you know, trying to get good jobs. Serkonos has been kind of shit for a while.”

He seemed to consider that, taking the rest of the pomegranate when she offered. After a companionable quiet, he said "You forgot to name me. I don't care what it is."

"Man, you don't wanna say that. All I can think of are weird old ones. You wanna be introducing yourself to people as  _ Alexandros?" _

"Seems fine. It’s just a name, names are… odd."

"Well that one is. I'm not calling you  _ that  _ all the time. How's just Alex sound?"

He almost laughed, a short noise that wasn't all that sure of itself. "It's fine. Am I finished this?"

"Yeah, just toss it in the canal. We'll dump this food at my apartment and head over to Addermire."

She only meant to toss the bag of groceries onto her bed, but then she paused to wash her hands. They might have gotten away otherwise; as it was she was just drying her hands on her trousers when the door rattled under an overly-forceful knock. "Abbey business!" called a voice on the other side. Fucking  _ great. _ "Open your door!"

She glanced at the newly named Alex. "Just sit on the bed for now, okay? And try and keep quiet." he blinked at her, but did as she asked, and she hurried to answer the door before it was knocked off its hinges.

A single Overseer stood on the other side, not the warfare kind, thank the Void, if his physique was anything to go by. He was holding a clipboard.

“Good morning, Miss,” he sounded tired, and irritable (but then, what Overseer didn’t) “Have you seen any suspicious activity in your area in the last few days?”

Ever the smooth talkers, Overseers. Never so much as a ‘a moment of your time, if I may’. “Nope, none.”

“No unusual persons? No strangers? No odd sounds or lights?”

“I see strangers every day, but it’s been pretty quiet.”

“But no one that struck you as obviously out of place? No one with an odd look or odd behaviour?”

“Nope. Should I have? I don’t get out much.”

“I see.”

His tone said what he thought of that for an answer; too tongue-in-cheek for his tastes, probably. He scribbled on his clipboard.

“Please allow me to view your premises.”

“W- for  _ what?” _

“To encourage honesty in the people of Karnaca.” he put a hand to his belt. He had the cursory sword they all carried these days, even the pencil pushers, but it was the whistle he was really drawing attention to. There would be more of his kind near enough to hear it. “Do you have anything to hide?”

“No,” how about an absolute oddball that might well be the strange person he seemed to be looking for? She just had to play it cool, stepping back, holding the door open, aware of her sweaty palms and thudding heart. The Overseer strode in like he owned the place.

Alex was sitting on the bed as asked, watching the whole exchange. He stared entirely unnervingly at the Overseer as he walked past, heading for a window and tossing Alex a look. “Have you seen anything strange, sir? Any odd persons?”

“What’s odd?” Alex’s eyes flickered to Dana. She prayed to the Outsider he wouldn’t say anything weird as she sidled over to him in the hopes she could elbow him into normalcy. 

“Out of place, strange tattoos?”

“...No." he didn't sound very convincing, although Dana could be fairly sure he was actually telling the truth. The Overseer was getting prickly, apparently interested in the view from her window but now throwing glances their way.

"No undressed man wandering in or around this building?"

Dana tried to turn her surprise into a laugh. "If I had, I'd've classed that as an odd person."

He made a noise of begrudging acceptance and paused to take his mask off for a moment, producing a handkerchief to mop at his brow. He was sickly underneath, his skin tinged grey and beaded with sweat. Dana almost found herself asking him if he was okay, but she bit it back. She wanted him gone, out of the house, and to be on the way already to Addermire. But he wasn't done yet, clearly. "Your neighbour," he said, when he'd put his mask back on "Said you borrowed some clothes from him."

Shit. "Yeah, I did."

"Those are very large for you, sir."

Alex's stare was admirably blank, so Dana tried to interject. "He ruined his other ones, and I don't exactly have spares lying around. He's- he's my brother, he was in an accident, in the mines, and he's not all there, you know? I'm doing my best."

The Overseer seemed not to care much for a sob story, given the terse way he asked "So could he have been the one wandering around naked outside?"

"I mean, I didn't notice, but sure, why not, he nearly died in the mines so sometimes he does weird stuff, okay?"

_ "Weird stuff _ like being witnessed climbing out of the window to a room found to hold a heretical shrine?"

"Wh-  _ no, _ what the fuck, he was here, okay? He's been here all day!"

"But not all night."

"Listen-" her heart was in her mouth; the Overseer marched over to them, his hand on his belt again. She flinched backwards.

"Harbouring a heretic is a crime punishable by death-”

He was no longer the only looming presence in the room. Alex had stood up, his pale eyes boring into the man, unblinking. "Leave her alone."

"You, heretic, will do better to shut your- hey!"

Alex grabbed his wrist, wrenching it up at an awkward angle. The Overseer scrabbled for the whistle, but Alex got there first, pulling it hard with a snap of the cord it was attached to and tossing it across the room. The Overseer wrenched against Alex’s grip and Alex- didn’t even  _ wobble.  _ “Let go of me!” panic was clear in the man's voice. Alex threw him by his arm, sending him stumbling back towards the door.

“Did you notice?”

In the pause, there was only their heavy breathing to break the quiet, and the creak of the floorboards as the man backed slowly away, as if from a wild animal.

“When it bit you.”

“What are you-” the Overseer was shaking. Alex followed him slowly with a walk that could only be described as predatory.

“When the bloodfly bit you. You’re in pain. That’s the eggs hatching. You’re feeling them start to eat you. The larvae make burrows, somewhere they can sit and tap into your bloodstream while they grow. If you don't find a nest soon, they'll make their own nest out of you. They hatch at night, did you know that? They eat through some of your nerves, so that you don't make too much noise when they come out, so that the people sleeping around you won't notice until they feel the first bites-"

With a strangled noise of terror, the Overseer reached the door, flung it open, and ran stumbling out. Dana sat on the bed, staring slack-jawed at Alex.

"What," she hissed eventually, a tremor in her voice "The  _ fuck _ was that?"

Alex looked back at her. "The truth. I think he knew he'd been bitten, he was just afraid to talk."

"No shit! He'd be fucking burnt alive! How could you- how could you  _ know-?" _

"I can smell them." he stared at the open door with a look Dana would almost have called  _ wistful. _

Oh, Void, she really had picked up a lunatic. And now the Overseer would be getting backup-

She grabbed the bag of shopping, and ushered Alex out of the door. "We're going to Addermire  _ right now." _

Addermire had seen better days, certainly; but there was scaffolding everywhere, fresh coats of paint, walls in the process of being stripped of old wallpaper. People milled about outside, catching the last of the sun, and offered smiles to the newcomers. The receptionist was friendly, despite his tired eyes. "What treatment are you looking for?"

"Uh, it's- well- I don't know  _ exactly _ . He doesn't remember who he is. He’s a bit..." she wasn't sure she wanted to bring up the Overseer incident to just the receptionist. The man took their names, scribbled something, and sent a small child that had been trying to throw pebbles into a waste paper basket behind him off with the scribble.

"If you just take a seat over there in the foyer, someone will come and get you when a doctor is available."

There was plenty of time to think over the fact her apartment was now screwed. Even if the Overseers didn't keep an eye on it, which they would, she'd get kicked out for it by her landlord. All because she couldn't just leave a crazy naked man well enough alone.  _ Fuck. _ She should have shut the door on him, should have been sensible - would have been, if she hadn’t seen what happened to people on the street who couldn’t take care of themselves before.

He shuffled slightly beside her and she glanced up. He was holding out one of the bottles she'd bought. She realised she was thirsty, after everything, and mumbled thanks as she took it, then offered him it back after a few gulps. He sniffed it, took a swig, and just about snorted it out of his nose. She covered her mouth with a hand, trying not to laugh as he spluttered and coughed.

"It… hurts?"

"The bubbles are kinda strong when it's just been opened, try sipping."

"I'm good," he passed it back with a look of distaste which set her off laughing again.

It didn’t feel like it had been that long before someone came to usher them properly inside, considering that Addermire was Addermire and there were more people in Karnaca who couldn’t afford to pay elsewhere for a doctor than could. They were led up the stairs and eventually to a small, cosy office where the doctor was waiting for them, his sleeves rolled up and his glasses sliding down his nose. He introduced himself as doctor Ragland. "My notes say a suspected head injury?"

"Well… maybe? He just can't remember a lot. And he’s a bit..." At some point on their way up the stairs, Alex's hand had found Dana's. He was holding on still as they sat in the chairs beside the desk, and she gave him a reassuring squeeze. “There’s no blood or anything.”

"If I may-?” the doctor stood up, gesturing. He wasn’t rebuffed, so he moved his hands over Alex’s head, pressing here and there with his fingertips. “I don’t feel any obvious injury. What kind of things are you having trouble remembering?”

“I-" Alex glanced at Dana, then away "It's not really my memory. I remember everything. It's that I wasn't a person before."

Dana was getting used to his odd outbursts, but that one was a new level. Doctor Ragland, however, only paused - when he replied, he gave the impression that he found the statement unremarkable. "Could you explain that for me?"

"I... was a bloodfly."

Ragland stepped back, and Alex clenched his hand on Dana's - but the doctor looked as calm as before. _Sure, that makes sense,_ he thoughtful nod seemed to say. "And when were you a bloodfly?"

"My whole life, until this morning. Can you fix me?"

Dana looked between them, trying not to let her jaw hit the floor. Was  _ she _ the bonkers one now? How the fuck was this a conversation being had with an actual doctor? Maybe he was a lunatic who'd just wandered into the doctor's office and started playing pretend.

"Well. I've never met anything like this before, but I could have Doctor Hypatia give you a more thorough examination in the morning. She's done a lot of work on bloodflies. Would you mind staying the night here?"

"Sure, that'd- that'd be great-" Dana stumbled at a questioning look from Alex, still trying to wrap her head around what was going  _ o n _ _-_ the doctor was hurried in taking them to a different wing of the building, one that was oddly empty, with single rooms with windows looking out onto the corridor. Before Dana could ask, Ragland ushered Alex into one of them and excused himself and Dana to another. With the door shut, he turned to her, the lines of his brow deepening and a serious kind of exhaustion on his face.

"I suspect that it’s bloodfly fever.” No beating about the bush; a chill flooded Dana’s stomach, and her words died on her tongue.

“Oh.”

"It would be an unusual one - normally I'd expect to see more obvious signs if it's advanced enough for him to be experiencing hallucinations, but if he's fixated on bloodflies, like he seems to be, then it's highly likely. I'm sure you understand why I don't want to take any risks."

"Yeah, I-I guess-"

"In the morning I can have doctor Hypatia examine him more closely and we can determine what exactly we're looking at. I'd advise just going along with the hallucinations as much as you can, it keeps them happy."

"And if he's got it?"

"I’m sorry. There isn't a cure yet. All we can really do is wait and make the end as easy for him as possible."

"Okay, shit.” she reeled. It all made sense, but she didn’t want it to. She felt guilt creeping in. What if she  _ had  _ left him alone in the hall? She would have been leaving him to be eaten alive from the inside out. “Um. Shit."

"Will you be staying?"

"Yeah," she imagined Alex lying on a table, with no one but a doctor by his side, as he was put to sleep like a sad stray "Yeah, as long as he's here. He's a nice guy, under all the weird. I think I could give him that, at least."

Ragland's expression softened. "Thank you. You don't have to pay to stay, either."

"Well, you can have my groceries. I don't need them. My apartment's… he kinda freaked out an Overseer with the bloodfly stuff, so I won't be going back there for a while."

"I'll take those to the kitchen, and you can settle in here. I don't think he's immediately dangerous, but I would be careful not to fall asleep in the same room as him."

He went away, leaving Dana to stand alone for a moment, pressing her face into her palms. She should be used to this by now; the amount of animals she'd saved from the streets only for something they already had to kill them just as she was starting to see their personalities flourish. But he was endearing in his weird way, and she missed having friends, and she’d kind of wondered, hoped, at the back of her mind...

There was a quiet knock on the wall. She went out and poked her head into Alex's room. "Hey. What’s up?"

"It's quiet here." he sat down on the bed and pulled his knees up to his chin.

"I know, right? Better than screaming fishmongers at my place."

"It's... too quiet. It was never this quiet in the hive, there was always- humming, you know?"

She felt her heart clench, like every time he brought it up he was putting another nail into his coffin. She came over and sat beside him. "I've never been in a bloodfly nest, so I'll take your word for it."

He smiled. "Probably for the best, right?"

"Yeah, don't take me to meet your family, I'd just make it awkward, all the screaming and stuff."

Their laughter softened the air a little, but then Alex was staring out of the window, his brow tugging down. "Dana."

"Yeah?"

"You said the Overseer probably hadn't told anyone he'd been bitten because they'd burn him alive."

"That's the Abbey for you."

"But he was their friend, they're a nest, you can't- do they really do that?  _ Burn _ people alive?"

"Well, they burn the bodies. And I've heard stories."

Alex shuddered, no more needing said. Outside, the dusk had finally come on. Dana rubbed her tired eyes and thought about saying goodnight - it felt unkind to close the day so soon, when he didn't have that many left.

She grabbed his pillow, propped herself up on the footboard, and gave him a nudge. "Go on then. What's it like to be a bloodfly?"

When she half woke up it was dark, and the blanket was pulled over her, and Alex was gone. She was going to get up and look for him when a noise made her peer under the bed. He was curled up in a ball, covered in another blanket and a newspaper dismantled into individual sheets. She thought about Ragland’s warning, but she was tired, and the soft sound of another’s breathing reminded her of sharing a room when she was a kid, unafraid of the dark when she knew her brother was close by. She rolled over, and went back to sleep.

The ship drew slowly into the docks, careful of the darkness. Powerful lights showed it its path and turned the waters black and Void-like, voices shouted back and forth between it and the wharf, ropes were thrown. The Overseers standing and waiting dockside folded their bare arms against the coolness of the night, or leant on stone walls that held heat still. They looked up to the ship with their black masks, and saw the golden gleam of the Gristol kind looking back at them.

A gangplank was lowered, and the Overseers on the boat began to disembark. Brother Ilarkos allowed himself brief amusement at their uniforms, the full Gristol look; snarling masks, stiff grey coats, suspenders. Fine for the night, but he was looking forward to getting to laugh at their discomfort come the day’s heat. He needed something to lift his spirits. Their very presence set his gut rolling.

He stepped out to meet them as they approached, offering a short, stiff salute to who he would have put money on being the leader; tall as a Serkonan redwood, just as broad, his coat clinging to his physique for dear life. "Welcome to Serkonos, brothers." Ilarkos found himself using a low voice, as if the Outsider himself could be eavesdropping from the shadows "You're just in time. We think the issue has progressed."

Several masks turned silently to look at him, prompting him to go on.

"There was an attack on one of our brothers this evening. A man cursed him with bloodfly fever, and he was found to have the maggots in him just a few hours ago. It's worth following up. It seems a little too much like coincidence."

He was given a curt nod, and quiet orders were issued among the group. Three left the docks entirely, the rest headed back to the ship, gathering bags. Ilarkos tried not to shuffle nervously in the larger-than-life presence that remained beside him. Aware of his Serkonan brothers not far off, and how delighted they would be to remind him forevermore of being cowed by Gristol Overseers, he ventured to casually break the silence. "If I may, brother… they say you were there, at the storming of Dunwall Tower against the witch. It is… hard to credit the wild stories one hears, I-"

The golden mask turned to him, and he caught a gleam from the eyes beneath it. When it spoke, the hoarse voice was far softer than he had been expecting, and made his hair stand on end.

"Beg each and every star in the sky that you never have to face a thing like Delilah."


End file.
